§ 16. Power and Algorithmic Domination

This page accompanies the German section § 16. Macht und algorithmische Herrschaft. Algorithmic power lies in classification, prediction, recommendation, exclusion, visibility control, and risk attribution. Algorithmic domination begins where such power becomes organizationally binding and where people regularly have to orient their conduct toward it.

This power is often quiet. It appears as a score, ranking, default suggestion, automated rejection, or warning rather than as an explicit command. Yet it changes probabilities of action before conflict becomes visible. A recommendation can become practically compulsory when deviation must be justified or when organizational culture treats the system as authoritative.

The legitimacy of algorithmic domination cannot be derived from accuracy alone. It depends on procedure, contestability, addressable responsibility, correction of classifications, and limits to concentration of power. The section gathers the earlier concepts of meaning, action, order, closure, attribution, and association into the question of domination.